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django-discover-runner 1.0

This runner has been added to Django 1.6 as the default test runner.
If you use Django 1.6 or above you don’t need this app.

An alternative Django TEST_RUNNER which uses the unittest2 test discovery
from a base path specified in the settings, or any other module or package
specified to the test management command – including app tests.

If you just run ./manage.py test, it’ll discover and run all tests
underneath the current working directory. E.g. if you run
./manage.py test full.dotted.path.to.test_module, it’ll run the tests in
that module (you can also pass multiple modules). If you give it a single
dotted path to a package (like a Django app) like ./manage.py test myapp
and that package does not itself directly contain any tests, it’ll do
test discovery in all submodules of that package.

Note

This code uses the default unittest2 test discovery behavior, which
only searches for tests in files named test*.py. To override this
see the TEST_DISCOVER_PATTERN setting or use the --pattern
option.

Why?

Django’s own test discovery is very much tied to the directory structure
of Django apps, partly due to historic reasons (the unittest library
didn’t have its own discovery for a long time) and prevents Django app
authors from being good Python citizens. django-discover-runner uses the
official test discovery feature of the new unittest2 library which is
included in Django.

By default there is no way to put project specific tests in a separate
folder outside the Python package of the Django project, which is a great
way to organize your code, separating the tests and non-test code.
django-discover-runner helps you clean up your project tests.

There is also no way to specify fully dotted import paths to test
modules, functions, class or methods to the test management command
but only Django’s odd standard <appname>.<TestClassName>.
django-discover-runner allows you to specify any type of label to Django’s
test management command.

By default Django’s test runner will execute the tests of Django’s own
contrib apps, which doesn’t make sense if you just want to run your
own app’s or project’s tests. django-discover-runner fixes this by allowing
you to specify which tests to run and organize your test code outside the
reach of the Django test runner.

Installation

django-discover-runner requires at least Django 1.4 and also works on 1.5.x.
Starting in Django 1.6 the discover runner is a built-in.

Setup

TEST_RUNNER (required) needs to point to the DiscoverRunner class
to enable it:

TEST_RUNNER = 'discover_runner.DiscoverRunner'

Add 'discover_runner' to your INSTALLED_APPS setting to enable the
ability to override the discovery settings below when using the test
management command.

TEST_DISCOVER_TOP_LEVEL (optional) should be the directory containing
your top-level package(s); in other words, the directory that should be on
sys.path for your code to import. This is for example the directory
containing manage.py in the new Django 1.4 project layout.
The management command option is called --top-level.

TEST_DISCOVER_PATTERN (optional) is the pattern to use when discovering
tests and defaults to the unittest2 standard test*.py. The management
command option is called --pattern.

Examples

Django app

To test a reusable Django app it’s recommended to add a test_settings.py
file to your app package to easily run the app tests with the test
management command. Simply set the TEST_RUNNER setting to
'discover_runner.DiscoverRunner', configure the other settings necessary
to run your tests and call the test management command with the name of
the app package, e.g.:

django-admin.py test --settings=myapp.test_settings myapp

Django project

If you want to test a project and want to store the project’s tests outside
the project main package (recommended), you can simply follow the app
instructions above, applying it to the “project” package, but set a few
additional settings to tell the test runner to find the tests:

Changelog

1.0 06/15/2013

GOOD NEWS! This runner was added to Django 1.6 as the new default!
This version backports that runner for Django 1.4.x and 1.5.x.

Removed TEST_DISCOVER_ROOT setting in favor of unittest2’s own way to
figure out the root.

Dropped support for Django 1.3.x.

0.4 04/12/2013

Added ability to override the discover settings with a custom test management
command.

0.3 01/28/2013

Fixed setup.py to work on Python 3. This should make this app compatible
to Python 3.

0.2.2 09/04/2012

Stopped setting the top level variable in the case of using a module path
as the test label as it made the wrong assumption that the parent directory
is the top level.

0.2.1 08/20/2012

Fixed a rather esoteric bug with testing test case class methods
that was caused by a wrong import and the way Django wraps itself
around the unittest2 module (if availale) or unittest on Python >= 2.7.

0.2 05/26/2012

Added ability to use an optionally installed unittest2 library
for Django projects using Django < 1.3 (which added unittest2 to the
django.utils.unittest package).

0.1.1 05/23/2012

Fixed a bug that prevented the project based feature to work correctly.

0.1 05/20/2012

Initial release with support for Django >= 1.3.

Thanks

This test runner is a humble rip-off of Carl Meyer’s DiscoveryRunner
which he published as a gist a while ago. All praise should be directed at
him. Thanks, Carl!

This was also very much related to ticket #17365 which eventually led
to the replacement of the default test runner in Django. Thanks again,
Carl!